In The Trenches: An OPS Protector Romance, page 14
“What about other known associates?”
“We’re working on that.” She sighed in annoyance. “I could really use a computer right now.”
“We’re running on bare essentials right now,” I reminded her.
“A computer is a bare essential to me. It’s my lifeline.”
“What about our friend, Rafe? Any idea what he’s up to?”
“He’s off the grid. Whatever he’s doing—”
“He doesn’t want anyone to know either,” I finished. “Does anyone do anything transparent anymore? Fuck, this is annoying.”
“Well, it doesn’t help that we’re basically working in the Stone Age. You wouldn’t be willing to send me out of state, would you?”
“For what reason?”
“Because I could find out things a lot faster if I wasn’t restricted to digging through state records. Give me a company vehicle, and I’ll set up in freaking Kansas or something.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to lose any manpower, but since she was already working solely on this, I couldn’t really argue that this wouldn’t be valuable. “Fine, but you’re taking Fox with you.”
Her face dropped and she groaned, covering her face with her hands. “Not Fox. Anyone but Fox.”
“He’s fucking crazy as hell. You know I can’t let him deal with people. He’ll end up killing someone.”
“So, you’re sending him with me?” she asked incredulously. “All you’re going to end up with is another dead body, and it won’t be mine.”
“If you want to go, you take him with you. But if you leave, you keep a tight grip on him. We don’t need more alphabets coming after us.”
“Fine,” she grumbled. “But know that I’m taking him with me under duress.”
I sighed heavily, pinching the bridge of my nose. “You know what? Don’t take Fox. Take New Guy.”
“Excuse me? I’m not taking him,” she said quickly.
“You didn’t want to take Fox, so now you’re taking New Guy.”
“Boss,” she groaned.
“I don’t want to hear it. You have to break him in at some point.”
She flipped me off as I turned and walked out of the room. I really needed some fucking coffee, but I wasn’t even sure how to make coffee without a fucking coffee pot. I headed into the kitchen, staring at the coffee pot and willing it to brew me just a single cup.
“Can’t we turn it on just long enough to brew a few pots of coffee?” Scottie asked.
“Until we are sure we can get a fuel truck out here, we have to conserve as much power as possible,” I muttered, wishing I could say differently.
“What if we boil the water?”
I turned to him, curious at his suggestion. “Do you know how to make coffee from boiled water?”
He rushed over to the cabinets, digging around inside. Finally, he pulled out a silver pot of some kind. “This is an espresso machine.”
I pointed at it, my eyebrows raised. “I’ve seen an espresso machine. That’s just a hunk of metal.”
“No, see, you put the coffee grounds in…” He unscrewed the middle and pulled out a sieve. “In here, and then you pour the water in the…um…well, it might take some experimenting, but I’ll figure it out.”
“And where are you going to get boiled water?”
He frowned, thinking that over. “The training center. I’ll build a fire and put the machine over the flame.”
“Great, so we might get coffee in an hour?”
“Do you want coffee or not?”
I weighed my options, which were pretty much go without coffee or risk burning down the building with Lock’s crazy idea. “I need coffee.”
He grinned, grabbing the rest of the supplies.
“You know, if you were IRIS, there’s no way I would let you do this!” I shouted as he ran out of the room.
20
BETH
That dreaded feeling in the pit of my stomach had returned. Ever since I went into work yesterday, I felt like someone was watching me. The whole way home, the hairs on the back of my neck were prickling, but every time I looked over my shoulder, I only saw regular people. If someone was following me, they were doing a damn good job of blending in.
I looked through the slats of my blinds, studying everyone on the street. There were so many people out there, walking now instead of driving. I hadn’t heard any more about how long this power outage was going to last, but earlier, I could have sworn I saw military vehicles driving a few streets over.
Dropping the blinds, I paced around the living room. Adam—Mr. Hayes— said to stop by today, and hanging around the apartment wasn’t doing me any good. Grabbing my purse, I decided it was now or never. I locked up and made the long walk back to work, practically running at times because I could feel eyes on me. I bumped into someone just as I was rounding the corner to the building, nearly falling over until someone grabbed my arm and steadied me.
“Hey—” I was ready to snap until I looked up into the eyes of my boss. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“It’s fine. I’m actually glad you came by today.”
“You are?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes, I was hoping you could describe the men you were with.”
For some reason, that made me uneasy…because of Seth. I didn’t want to give him away. It was so ridiculous. If he was there doing something wrong, then I should definitely tell Mr. Hayes what he looked like. On the other hand, he was really good to me, helping me out of my panicked mind when anyone else might have ignored me. And if I gave his description and he got in trouble, he would just be another one of my casualties.
“Beth?”
I was lost in my thoughts, not even paying attention to my boss. “Um…I’m not sure I got a good look at them. It was dark,” I said dumbly.
“Any description would help.”
He took me by the elbow, directing me around the corner to the entrance of the building. He nodded to the guard as we passed, noting there were now several more security guards than yesterday. “Did you have any luck finding out what they took?”
“I thought you said you didn’t know if they took anything,” he said, side-eyeing me as we headed for the stairwell. He opened the door for me, still gripping my elbow as we started to climb.
“Oh, well, I guess I don’t know. I just assumed if they were here and they weren’t supposed to be, then they took something.”
Feeling uncomfortable with how he was holding me, I gently pried myself from his grip, giving a tight smile as I moved further away from him. Except, when I stepped back, I forgot we were on stairs and I nearly fell backward. Adam’s hand shot out, grabbing me before I could take a deadly tumble. He pulled me close to his body, holding me tight as my heart pounded in my chest. Like yesterday, I felt something when I was with him. My skin felt flush when he touched me, and everything around me seemed to stand still for a moment.
His hand slid up my arm, brushing gently over the curve of my neck. There was an intimacy to the way he was holding me, like he needed to touch me. My eyes dropped to his lips, and for just a moment, I wondered what it would be like to have a man’s lips on mine. It had been so long, and I was tired of being alone. But Art’s death was a stark reminder that it wasn’t safe for anyone to be close to me.
Clearing my throat, I pulled back from him, pushing my hair behind my ear as I attempted to do something with my hands as a distraction. I could feel my face flush bright red, but thankfully, he didn’t say anything about it.
“We should head to my office.” His voice was a gruff rumble that made me wish for things I couldn’t have. Pulling myself together, I followed him upstairs and into his office. Thankfully, he took the seat behind his desk, putting some distance between us as I sat on the other side.
“So, what can you tell me about the men that were here?”
I shifted in my chair as Seth’s face flashed in my mind. “They wore trench coats.”
“Anything else?”
“Um…They were tall.” I could see the frustration building on his face. I didn’t want to disappoint him, but I felt like I was trapped in something I didn’t want any part of. I was supposed to be keeping a low profile, and here I was being dragged into a mystery.
I stood suddenly, feeling too uncomfortable with all of this. “You know, I think I should actually go.”
“But you said you were interested in working.”
“Yes, but the power’s still out. What would I even do?”
“Then at least let me take you home.”
I wasn’t sure if he wanted to grill me more about the men or if this was about our moment on the stairs. Either way, I needed to leave before this got out of hand.
“That’s really not necessary. I actually have to make a stop anyway.”
“Where?” he asked, almost an accusation, but then schooled his features. “Sorry, that was rude.”
I was so shocked by the outburst that I turned on my heel and walked out of the room. I thought I heard him following me, so I ran for the stairwell and hurried down the stairs. Things were getting stranger by the moment. I burst out onto the street and ran to the corner, slipping around the edge of the building. Once pressed against it, I let my heart calm before peeking around the edge. Adam stood on the sidewalk, looking in both directions. Another man walked up to him and they seemed to argue, then Adam pointed in my direction. I quickly pulled back, afraid I had been caught. After a moment, I looked around the corner again, only to find the man hurrying in my direction.
I took off down the sidewalk, racing through the crowd quickly building the further I got down the street. Glancing over my shoulder, fear skittered down my spine when I saw the man still following me. And when our eyes locked, he started running toward me. I didn’t even pay attention to my surroundings when I ran across the street, narrowly avoiding cars and trucks to get to safety on the other side.
Luckily, he didn’t have the ease of crossing the street, and ended up nearly crushed by a vehicle he ran in front of. I ducked inside an open door, running up the stairs and praying I could hide out for a while. I didn’t even bother to check out my surroundings as I found a dark corner to sit in. I stayed there for what felt like hours until finally my heart calmed. When no one came, I took a chance and exited my hiding spot.
With my hand gliding along the wall, I slowly made my way downstairs, watching for the man who chased me. But he wasn’t there, or anywhere on the street that I could see. Yet, I still felt eyes on me the entire way home. The question was, who was following me? Was it the man from work, or was it someone from my past?
21
CASH
“How are we looking?” I asked Mark as he showed me the grid where they’d been able to reverse engineer the power. “We’re looking good. We’ve already started in some of the grids, but this particular grid is a problem.”
I looked closer at it. “What’s going on?”
“These five buildings, all of them have generators, but none of them kicked in when the power failed.”
“Just on this grid?”
“Exactly. It doesn’t make any sense. When the power went out, the generator would automatically kick in and take over, but that’s not what happened here.” He stared at the grid curiously, but I could tell there was something else on his mind.
“Whatever it is, just say it.”
He finally turned to me, his face serious. “Look, in order for the backup generators not to kick in they would have to be out of fuel. But what’s the likelihood that happened to five buildings on the same block?”
I knew exactly how that might happen. “It could if the backup power was cut.”
“Who would do that?” he said in a low voice. “It’s gotta be a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.” I grabbed the sheet with the grid information on it. “Keep working on this. I’m going to run down a few things.”
Stalking out of the office, I headed to find Rae, only remembering when I entered the IT room that she had already left with New Guy. “Shit,” I muttered.
“Need something, boss?” Dash asked as he walked into the room.
He was another IT guy, but also worked in the training center with Fox. Rae was my mastermind, but Dash grew up a computer nerd, so he switched on and off when needed. Fortunately, he could hold his own in the ring with everyone else, including Rae. “I need to find some footage.”
He snorted. “There was a blackout. What kind of footage are you hoping to find?”
“I think we might have a lead on why the blackout happened, but it’s a long shot.”
“I love a good long shot,” he grinned. “Where are we going?”
He grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair and pulled it on before I even answered. I waited to answer until we were completely alone. I didn’t want too many conspiracy theories floating around until I had more evidence.
We got in my truck, and only then did I reveal what I thought might have happened. “You know we’ve been working on reverse engineering the power back to the city from larger generators around the city.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, one block is completely black. Five buildings, all with generators, failed to kick in during the power outage.”
“That sounds like more than a coincidence.”
“That’s what I thought. So, we have a massive power outage with no explanation.”
“You mean, other than the fact that they’ve fucked the entire west coat. Boss, it’s a domestic terrorist attack.”
“Yes, but there’s always a purpose behind it. What would that be? To teach us a lesson?”
He frowned, glancing away from me. “To cause disruption to the system.”
“No, I don’t buy it. And if it had been one failed generator, I would have believed it was just that, but five is excessive, and all on one block? Somebody purposely killed the backup power to those buildings.”
“To hide the true target,” he added.
“Exactly. Maybe they were hoping in the chaos nobody would notice, or maybe they just wanted to buy some time.”
“But like you said, if they only cut the backup power to one building, nobody would think anything of it. Why take out the whole block?”
“I’m guessing so the target didn’t realize they were a target. If there was a failure on the entire block, somebody else might not put two and two together.”
“But you’re not just somebody, boss.”
“Aw, you flatter me.”
“Well, someone’s got to hold that gigantic head on your shoulders.”
“It’s gigantic for a reason. There are brains behind all these muscles.”
“Didn’t realize your muscles were in your head,” he retorted.
“Your brain is a fucking muscle, moron.”
I knew I walked right into it, but I couldn’t help it. Sometimes, it was just too easy to bait Dash. “The brain itself is not a muscle. It contains blood vessels and nerves, including neurons and glial cells—”
I tuned him out as I parked the truck across the street from the grid where all the power went out. Dash was still rattling on about the brain as I looked at the buildings in front of us.
“You start with the far building,” I interrupted, pointing to the building on the corner. “I’ll start at the other end. As far as they’re concerned, you’re looking into how to get their backup generators working so we can use them for this grid.”
“Got it, boss.”
He shoved his door open at the same time as me and we went our separate ways. The first two buildings were a bust. The first was an office building. They didn’t seem to be affected by the outage at all. There were security guards posted in the lobby, and they didn’t report anything suspicious happening. The second building was much the same. There were no security guards, but the boss seemed wholly unconcerned about the actual outage. His only concern was how much money he was losing with his employees at home.
I walked into the third building on my list, not very hopeful that I would get anything out of them. That is, until I saw the extreme number of security guards in the lobby.
“I don’t care about your excuses!” a man yelled from across the lobby. I couldn’t tell who he was yelling at because the other figure was in the stairwell. The man turned and stomped toward me, his pace slowing when he saw me.
“Excuse me,” I said, walking up to him with my hand held out. “My name is Cash Owens. I’m working with the city.”
He eyed me speculatively. “You don’t look like you work for the city.”
I glanced down at my jeans, black jacket, and black boots, then back up to him. “It’s laundry day, and that’s not really an option right now.”
He nodded, his hands fisting at his sides. He seemed agitated as he stood in front of me. He was eager to get somewhere, but he didn’t want to appear rude. Either that, or he didn’t want me to know that he wanted to get away from me as quickly as possible.
“What can I help you with?”
“Well, we’re trying to reverse power from larger generators, such as the one you have, but it seems like this entire block lost its backup generators.”
“As you can see, we’re still in the dark,” he said, holding his hands up, motioning to the darkness of the building even in broad daylight.
“Any idea what might have caused the backup to fail?” His eyes narrowed on me. “So we can fix the issue,” I added. “We’re eager to get as much power back to the city as possible.”
“Since it’s my generator, I think the power should be fed back into my building, not the city,” he countered.
“Except, this is a coast wide issue. Millions are without power.”
“And that’s my problem, why? I’m the one that pays for this building, the generator, and the fuel that runs it.”
I smirked at him, glancing around the lobby again. “Is there some reason you need the power for this building more than others?”
“This is a research facility, Mr. Owens. We have many projects that are kept under lock and key. Electronic locks, that is. Without power, all our research is vulnerable.”
